Balsam Range to play Franklin

Acclaimed bluegrass/gospel group Balsam Range will play a free concert at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, at the Cowee School Celebration in Franklin.

Built in 1943 on the site of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, the school served thousands of students until it was closed as a school in 2012. Efforts are now underway to preserve and reuse the historic school as a community and heritage center. The dinner, prepared by chef Lindsey Kent of the Cottage, is sold out, but there is still plenty of space and parking left for the free performance. Food vendors will also be on-site.

Reading Room

Like some other readers I know, my taste in books these last 20 years or so has shifted from fiction to non-fiction, especially history, biography, and literary studies. I still follow certain novelists — Anne Tyler, Pat Conroy, James Lee Burke, and others — and still review novels for this paper, but find that works of fiction simply don’t appeal as much as when I was in my twenties and thirties, when I read stacks of novels and poetry.